(first posted 12/5/2015) Arriving as 1995 models, within one year the Windstar already became somewhat outdated due to its lack of dual sliding doors, a feature pioneered by the new 1996 Chrysler minivans, and soon offered on GM’s new 1997 minivans. Notwithstanding this drawback, the first generation Windstar still averaged 200,000 sales per year. Yet in light of this, they haven’t been common sights in at least a decade.
Notoriously prone to head gasket and transmission failures, a direct result of Ford using Taurus engines and transmissions in a significantly heavier minivan body, many first generation Windstars went to the great open highway in the sky much earlier than their competitors. This blue 1997 GL is clearly a survivor, although its cosmetic defects and reject inspection sticker (meaning it failed emissions testing or has some other mechanical defect) could signify that its days are numbered.
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These vans drove well and were tremendously comfortable inside, but no one in our family shed a tear when our ’95 left our lives on the back of a tow truck.
I just saw one this morning. Of course it was a GL with the 3.0 motor, which is the key to Windstar survival.
“The first generation Windstar still averaged 200,000 sales per year. Yet in light of this, they haven’t been common sights in at least a decade.”
That’s because they’re horrible junk, prone to catastrophic trans failures and exploding intake plenums, and their crap resale value guarantees that it makes absolutely no sense to fix one.
Had one as a company vehicle, trans failed on mine (and the majority of the others in the company fleet).
The Windstar was possibly the worst of the junk Ford churned out during the Nasser Era.
My first thought was the 2nd president of Egypt, Abdel Nasser, a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement back then. Jacques Nasser has Lebanese roots, which by coincidence is the nationality of many Dearborn residents & Ford workers.
We had Lebanese neighbors from Michigan; the husband drove a Taurus SHO. The wife was a nice lady, but believed 9/11 was a Jewish plot. Anyhow they eventually moved back.
Jacques Nasser came to Ford US by way of Ford Australia – apparently there is a substantial Lebanese population in OZ.
The number of Arabian background residents is surprising in south Michigan, especially in Dearborn and Southfield, and too often students can have a clue from their names in the universities.
We looked at one when they were just coming out, but opted for a 1 year old loaded Club Wagon. Bullet dodged. We knew several people who owned early ones, and I lost count of the number of transmissions they burned through. The last Ford most of those families owned, too.
I recently took some pictures of the best preserved Windstar I have seen in eons. It is noteworthy, because the few I normally see around here are on their last legs. With one notable exception, a later model owned by a friend that is at well over 150K miles and still does occasional beater duty.
My wife got a super deal on loaded a 97 LX Windstar. It was a great family hauler and was just the ticket for a road trip from Edmonton to Idaho. Very comfortable, quiet and fuel efficient even with the rig loaded with teenagers and all the family gear. Cruising at 140 km/ph through Montana (when there was no speed limit on highways) was a breeze.
The Windstar was traded in two years later when my wife realized it made no sense to have a minivan with one child left at home. We never had mechanical issues.
But isn’t it interesting that Windstars seem to have disappeared when many Chrysler minivans from the same era are still on the streets? The slightly redesigned and renamed Freestar can still be seen, most looking like the van shown in this feature.
You really see the limits of the Taurus platform in these and the Continentals. People was poetic about the Audi like styling but the bones were not as robust. The Chrysler car based mechanicals, Ultradrive excluded, and the GM parts bin in the Dustbusters and Ventures, proved much longer lived.
I know, what about Toyota, it’s Sienna was durable and unlike earlier entries from them, actually aimed at the American family. Great, as long as you could afford them, and did not mind that the extra you were paying was going overseas. Honda, stuck with it’s lousy autos in these models, more like Windstar.
1997 Windstar GL with dest $21235, Previa DX S/C with dest $25298, bet also Ford dealer had a rebate and dealt more. Surprised the Sienna was so late.
You get what you pay for. That’s what strikes me: Toyota based the [Indiana-built] Sienna on the Camry, so why did its driveline hold up & Ford’s didn’t? Moreover, its engine was/is state of the art (aluminum DOHC VVT). I was nervous about that actually, but fears were groundless.
So I’m glad to “send my money overseas” to competent managers rather than Dilbert bosses. A good worker is worthy of his hire, wherever he lives. Besides, American corporate PR these days suggests they have a value system very different from mine & what they used to believe 70 yrs ago, so I don’t identify with them anymore.
I have always thought generational politics played a large part in the turning away from domestics. I see you agree. And yes clearly the Taurus bones were not up to heavier duty and the Camry’s were, as where Chryslers and GMs.
Generational stereotypes (promoted by the media & marketers) are Hasty Generalizations, & for the record, I’d rather not be identified with such pigeonholes in spite of my year of birth.
The generation that during the ’60s whined about the Establishment, are now the Establishment, & without even the pretense of civility & decorum.
Hear, hear.
I think this has a large part to so with it. My grandfather served in the Navy during WWII, and received a Purple Heart from being shot by the Japanese. There was no way that he would have ever considered a Honda or Toyota (Ironically, he went with a Ford Escort, which had heavy Mazda roots, though….)
Today, though, most people wouldn’t think twice over a Honda or Toyota. Used cars are also very common. My Audi is a German car, but Audi hasn’t made any money off of me. A car dealer in Colorado made money, the same as if I would have bought a Chrysler or Lincoln….
Old wounds heal? There was a time in the sixties and seventies when people of Chinese heritage in Canada would not purchase Japanese vehicles. Their children did not adhere to that line of thinking, nor their grandchildren as evidenced by the number of Asian people I see driving luxury Japanese and German cars.
Also, the waters are muddy when you have Mexican- or Canadian-built US brands & American-built Japanese, Korean, and European brands. You wind up doing a lot of Special Pleading trying to justify “Buy American” anymore.
And Asia is integrating; while old wounds are still open (i.e. Comfort Women) & prejudices remain (i.e. Japanese mistrust of Korean locals), economic ties are getting closer there. It’s fascinating to watch.
My father, who fought in the Israeli War of Independence in 1948 and of course was all too aware of what happened only three years earlier, refused to buy a German car till the day he died; no such problems with Japanese cars but “we had no fight with the Japs” so to speak was his view. My Brother and sister who are in their 40s (and their spouse) both have VWs and Opels; I drive a Japanese car (in Austria, of all places) but my rejection of anything the German car industry has to offer has nothing to do with that war but with practical considerations (bloated prices and not that great reliability)…
I wasn’t referring to WWII. I was referring to the signifigant part of the baby boom generation that somehow equated the big three with pollution, corruption, Vietnam, Nixon. or whatever it was that was putting a bee in their bonnet. they didn’t need the war machines or the ghetto scenes and were going to be swayed by whatever Detroit offered. We don’t want your stinking Geo Prism
In Israell or Austria, there was no choice but to buy a non domestic car, and so money had to leave the country for the purpose. The USA was different. A large local industry supported a vast bulk of people who were earning good wages. When Detroit did not offer small models or little roadsters, importing VWs or MGs in numbers made sense. For veriety, I am also in favor of a smattering of everything from everywhere. But buying a car is a major investment, and to have so much money leave the country when there are viable domestic alternatives is not something that should be done lightly without careful thought. The Windstar still would have failed but the Chrysler would have had even more success and then perhaps not been given to Fiat or sold for stock to DB.
Paul and others clearly disagree with me. Given that, it is a credit to him that he lets this discussion go on. So I hope both sides keep the discussion friendly. The trends we are talking about are years ago.
Chryslers and Hondas were also notorious for transmission problems. The Sienna didn’t come out until 1997 and was not competitive until 2004. The GMs were never really competitive.
I have always thought generational politics played a large part in turning away from domestics
The import boom in the 50s first got its start from returning GIs who were smitten with the smaller, better handling cars they were exposed to in Europe.
In the 50s, the Americans manufacturers weren’t building any cars like that; in fact during that decade, American cars swelled to huge size and weight. There were a lot of folks of all generations and politics who wanted something smaller, cheaper, and different than that. That’s what started the import boom.
And then in the 70s, the quality of American cars got worse and worse. The Japanese showed that small cars could not only be more efficient , cheaper and fun to drive, but more reliable as well.
And the ever-cheapening and growing sales of Cadillac in the late 60s and 70s meant that they were no longer exclusive, so no prestige value. So Americans embraced the Mercedes (and other premium import brands). Cadillacs colossal mis-steps in the 80s just cemented that.
The whole generational aspect is just one of a number of key factors that played into the switch to imports. It’s often exaggerated. Maybe in the heartland it was more so, but not on the coasts. Imports have been a major factor in CA since the 50s, and in parts of the East Coast too.
Good point, and some WW2 generation were satisfied with I6 Falcons, Mustangs, Darts, Valients, and Novas as “small cars”. Corvair “could have been a contender”. Too bad Detroit had poorly built sub compacts in 70’s.
60’s VW Bug fans switched to 70s/80s Corolla/Civic/Accord, and the rest is history.
The Japanese cars gained market share more because of the improvements in the products in recent years, than quality difference. As horrible as late ’70s American cars were in quality, Japanese cars usually couldn’t stay in one piece too long ( rust faster than Chrysler F-Body ) and parts availability, interchangeability, horrifying designs alike didn’t help neither. Many Datsuns were better screwed together but they didn’t last any longer, they actually lasted far shorter than many horrible cars anyway ( if counting Chrysler F-Body again ) Cars started to get sort of close to being refined in the ’90s for affordable smaller cars in a large scale, like GM A-Body, Ford Tempo, and Camry sometimes.
Same can be said of motorcycles. Just compare a 1975 Honda CB750 or Kawasaki 900Z1 to a 1975 Harley-Davidson.
orangechallenger: that’s your opinion, and one that I don’t share the slightest.
I suspect that you being from Michigan plays a considerable factor in your opinion. true, many early Japanese cars rusted badly. But they weren’t the only ones. But while rust may be a big issue in the Rust belt, there’s more to the US than that.
The intrinsic high quality of most/all Japanese cars was noted from the beginning. Just go back and read some old vintage reviews. And it is precisely the reason that Japanese cars were so successful in the West Coast initially, where rust is not a factor. I’ve been showing you pristine old Japanese cars on the road here for years.
To say that the Japanese only became successful”in recent years” is pretty absurd, I’m sorry to say. Frankly, I’m not going to waste any more time trying to rebut you, because anyone who would say that is obviously not being even vaguely objective.
The simple fact is this, and it’s one every Detroit auto exec will admit to: the Japanese revolutionized the US industry, because their cars were much better quality and more reliable, on average, than US cars. The US industry had to get its shit together and improve quality, but not before they were essentially destroyed (bankrupted) in the process (Ford excepted, barely).
This goes right back to the early 70s. Why do you think Ford eventually had to respond to its abysmal quality rankings in the 70s and launched it’s “Quality is Job #1” campaign? CR showed the American cars falling way behind even in the 70s.
You need to take US Automotive Industry History 101.
Having lived in Michigan for the last 60 odd years, the typical big three response I have seen to problems has always been to blame the union, or the government, or the Japanese.
Consumer Reports road tests used to list the number of faults they found in cars they tested. CR does not use massaged cars from the manufacturer’s test fleet, but buys them from dealers so they are representative of what we civilians would buy. In the 70s, CR would typically count 25-30 faults on a big three car, ranging from tires underinflated, to major malfunctions, like the Plymouth Volare whose torsion bars snapped when it was parked in their test car lot. The last time I looked at a CR test, the fault counts ran around 3-6 per car.
Not long ago, someone posted a video test of a then new 79 Mustang on Facebook, which pointed out the shoddy build quality. Most of the people on that board must be a lot younger than I as they wondered how the car “ever got out of the plant” with the loose carpet and other glaring cosmetic faults.
This goes right back to the early 70s. Why do you think Ford launched it’s “Quality is Job #1” campaign? CR showed the American cars falling way behind even in the 70s.
iirc, the Q1 campaign was a second generation effort.
I recall a big “no unhappy owners” banner being set up in the service department of my local Ford dealer in the mid 70s and with every trip to the shop, I was handed a survey card to mail back to Ford about my satisfaction with the car and the service received.
The Q1 campaign apparently started in 81, and was dropped in 98.
Of course, with it’s 81 start, Q1 was in full effect when the Tempo and first gen Taurus came out. I have the 91 and 96 CR reliability tables and their history is not pretty.
The ’97 Sienna had head gasket issues.
There was a sludge problem, the subject of a class-action lawsuit with that generation (beginning model yr. 1998). Early-adopters, beware. Yes, Toyota stumbles from time to time.
The problem is not “the Taurus platform”; it’s that the 3.8 V6 and the automatic were both severely flawed. They both had similar issues in the Taurus too; the extra weight of the Deathstar may have brought on the failure a bit sooner, but those engines and transmissions were deadly no matter what they were installed in.
True, that was the main problem, but our Windstar consumed tie rod ends, struts and front brakes at a prodigious rate.
Ultimately that was the reason we got rid of it. Send it in for another complete front end rebuild, or take that money and put it into a newer van?
Where an auto company is based and where its vehicles are produced are much less important in buying a car than is the car’s overall quality and reliability. If an Auto Company A from Country X makes a better vehicle than Auto Company B from Country Z, then I’m buying the first.
Plus, the Sienna was built in the U.S. Buying one supported the American automakers that built them.
Sienna is produced in Indiana, hopefully the workers get the same rights and benefits as the plants in Toledo.
But buying one made in those areas with the politicians carefully made the laws to let workers work for less income, it only pushed the country back to the ’20s. People in Dearborn had enough riots and protest against Ford ( and in Hamtramack against Chrysler. Chrysler was the worst crook in employers at the time ) back then and finally made American car companies ( GM, Ford, Chrysler, AMC…etc) sort of disciplined. Toyota isn’t going to be so disciplined by itself, and stronger the company is, the harder it would be to discipline them.
Fretting about other folks’ Rights & Benefits is a Blind Alley of speculation unless one actually works there. Worse, I don’t even know how well workers are treated by my present employer since I don’t work in Manufacturing. It’s a very different subculture.
This is much easier: If a product has a good rep, it’s probably built by well-treated & motivated workers, and non-idiot managers.
“This is much easier: If a product has a good rep, it’s probably built by well-treated & motivated workers, and non-idiot managers.”
It’s the way it should work. However, it’s not uncommon for many Asian factories with serious labor exploitation to produce very good products. Strangely, it almost only happens on Asian companies. Besides cars, Fujitsu is an example.
Brendan, I was more referring to the price premium that was being paid on Japanese models being all profit and repatriated to Japan. A Sienna production cost were almost assuredly lower than a Windstar. Somewhat from being nonunion, but I think more importantly, from the disciplined r+d system and the fully utilized plants. Yet the transaction prices were much higher, in 97 probably by about 25-30%. This money went to Japan. It is not a crime, but some new car buyers may want to give the matter some thought on what for many is a very major purchase. That is all I am saying.
I am not suggesting buying a Windstar. The minivans were all much heavier versions of their manufacturers mid size, front drive parts bins. The shapes were also much less areo, and the payloads were much higher. This was a test for everyone. Some past, and a lot failed the test. Some Japanese failed, and some Americans passed the test. It was model by model, not country or origin. The Windstar was a fail.
Jon C: The profits ultimately belong the the shareholders. There’s plenty of Americans who own “TM”, and quite happily at that. And Japanese (or anyone else) can own GM, Ford, or FCA stock. It’s a global economy.
Where do you think Toyota profits go? A lot of them were invested in US facilities.
Toyota profits will go some to the tax man, mostly the Japanese taxman. Some to the shareholders, most of whom are Japanese, and some will be reinvested in facilities, mostly in Japan.
You’re making assumptions, which are not true. Among other things, Toyota has not been expanding its Japanese production capacity for ages. They’ve been building plants all over the world, and most of all in the US.
Anyway, it’s an utterly moot point. Where do the profits for your clothes, bed sheets, towels, phone, tv, etc. go to? If folks had bought only American cars forever, we’d still be getting the same crappy quality they were trying to feed us in the 70s and 80s. It’s a global economy, and if the US manufacturers can’t compete on quality and cost, they’re rightfully toast.
Riddle me this: my last GM was a German Open built in Belguim and sold as a Saturn. Who exactly was I supporting?
My current (and the brand’s latest) Dodge is a a warmed over Alfa Romeo owned by Fiat built in Illinois. Again, who?
If I spent my days trying to buy things made by Americans in America with American materials I’d live like a settler.
In today’s world, after too many years of people not paying attention, you are correct that there is no longer any such thing as a national car, and we are all the worst for it, as with the passing everything became homogenized and blanded down. The USA forces automakers to list domestic content, where assembled and where the engine and transmission originate on the mulrooney new car sticker, to try to help those who still care, and I encourage those that do to use the info.
I’ll never forget when I bought my Sonoma in ’99. My father, who works for GM for 40+ years now got so damn excited when he looked under the hood on the showroom floor and saw the code that meant the engine rolled off the line on his shift. He probably helped to build it. I wonder how many employees still have that sense of pride?
FWIW, while on vacation ca. ’06 we rented a Windstar, which made an interesting comparison with our ’04 Sienna LE. The Ford had worse fuel economy, slower acceleration (despite bigger engine), cheaper-feeling trim (OK w/ me if it’s durable), & a much wider turning circle which embarrassed us once. Absolutely no regrets going Toyota here; now my son has it after 120Kmi. No soup for you, Dearborn!
Actually we were supposed to rent an Uplander, but didn’t have the seating we were promised. I wonder how that would’ve compared.
I think Taurus platform has its strength, its handling is far superior to GM H-Body, but the powertrain is not so great. It would be just so good if it has Taurus platform’s handing, H-Body’s crash worthiness, and Buick/Lincoln’s engine with supercharger matched to GM 4T65 transmission.
But in the end, the V8 InTech Continental has a detuned engine and transmission is still fragile, Taurus doesn’t hold up so well in accidents ( not as good as LeSabre ) and H-Body has not so great handing despite strut bar.
Maybe it’s the hot rodder in me but a bad powertrain doesn’t equate a bad platform, as my definition of a platform is the slate the powertrain is inserted into and the external body is draped over. There’s utterly horrible platforms with great powertrains, and excellent platforms with ho hum powertrains. IMO Ford produced the latter through most of the 80-90s, GM the former
Also a strut bar doesn’t equate good handling, if anything the contrary is true. It’s a warning beacon that the chassis is such a poorly engineered wet noodle that it needs a piece of scaffolding to hold itself together.
“Also a strut bar doesn’t equate good handling, if anything the contrary is true. It’s a warning beacon that the chassis is such a poorly engineered wet noodle that it needs a piece of scaffolding to hold itself together.”
But then, even with a strut bar, GM H-Body still feels so squeaky, far worse than many cars don’t have it. I can’t help imagining how H-Body handles without it.
Without it the hood would probably rub the paint off the inner fender edges… Hmm now that I think of it early H bodies without the STB had wraparound(hood acting as the tops of the fenders) forward tilting tilt hoods, didn’t they… 😀
Really when it comes to handling STBs and braces are myths. Cars that handle better with them do so because of actual suspension, braking and tire upgrades that are almost always part of the package including them. The functional purpose of those bars in factory applications is to minimize fatigue of the existing structure from the stiffer/harsher suspension components equipped, and to a certain extent add bling factor underhood (recent Mustangs are guilty of this), making the car handle better via reducing strut tower deflection though? Yeah, no, the sidewall of even the lowest profile tire will deflect in magnitudes several times greater than those towers will.
Usually in a common situation, softer suspension can hide quite some body flex. But I still feel quite a bit of body flex on H-Body LeSabre with super soft suspensions. I test drove two LeSabre, a ’95 with 81k and a ’99 with 20k respectively, and they flex alike. I couldn’t believe it came out from the factory like that.
Every time I gently press the gas pedal, I hear squeak from the B-pillar and rocker panel, I just can’t help feeling how flexible the chassis is.
Of course I would read this article stating that the Windstar was at a huge disadvantage next to the 3rd Gen Chrysler minivans due to the lack of a second sliding door, then I walk outside and parked directly across the street was a SWB 3rd Gen Caravan with… no drivers side sliding door! I know this was an option at first, but I can’t imagine many were made that way.
Yes, it was optional at first. I actually remember thinking that the 4th door wasn’t going to be really huge, as everyone had been doing just fine with 3. Boy was I wrong. I lived with 3 in my Club Wagon. To this day, all of my children instinctively head for the passenger side of whatever car we are going to drive, even though we have not had a 3 door anything in nearly 10 years.
I remember seeing quite a few low-spec models, both short and long wheelbase, that were that way. It must’ve been included with the highline trims but pricey as a freestanding option at least early in the run.
No emissions testing for anything more than 15 years old in MA; this means it failed something safety-related in its inspection. Even an emissions-exempt car will fail the safety inspection for visible smoke, however. (The same type of inspection sticker is used on both safety/emissions and safety-only cars.)
I also noticed how quickly these seemed to vanish from the road. They were a rare sight by 2005. Rust and transmission issues did them in, I’m guessing. The 1996-2000 Chryslers were common until about 2010, but you can still find them on the road regularly. The 1997 GM vans were made until 2004 with very few changes (2005 for fleets, I believe), so it’s hard to compare.
In Michigan, there isn’t any inspection, and many Post Offices in tight budget areas still use them. For example, Oak Park still have a large fleet of them, and the rust underbody extends all the way from bottom to above fuel tank cap. Obviously, it will fail inspection with far less salt in other areas, and they are probably only alright to drive at mail car speed. ( or maybe, mail car speed made those windstars live longer around Oak Park ) It explains why most other people don’t see Windstar too often.
It has a red “R” for rejection, meaning it has a safety failure. A black “R” is for emissions failures only. The red “R” is also intended to be more visible, as the vehicle is technically not legal to drive in this condition.
The 3.8 and AX4S in these were their undoing. When the SPI version came out with multi-layer steel head gaskets the engine was much better, however these tended to suffer from intake manifold leaks. The AX4N is a little better than the AX4S but that’s not saying much. Body fit and finish was severely lacking up until it was mildly improved on the Freestar.
If the transmission was more reliable, a 4.6 intech swap would make quite a ride.
These are somehow still quite common (if not coveted) in the Pacific Northwest. I see them everyday but definitely don’t “notice” them. Bland, even by minivan standards.
“…was a GL with the 3.0 motor, which is the key to Windstar survival…”
Sister and family had a ’96 GL with Vulcan motor, and no problems for 10 years. The 3.8 had many failures.
Sometimes the slow, low HP, base model is the better buy in long run.
It seems like there’s Good Ford and Bad Ford, and nobody knows how a model will sugar off for at least a decade but there’s a consistency to it. Vulcan-engined Windstar’ll last apart from the seemingly endemic-to-minivans transmission woes, 3.8s die young. MkI Focus sedan or wagon? Watch that rocker panel rust. MkI Focus hatchback? No rust problems.
Not quite as random as the Mopar Quality Lottery, but just as unpredictable when buying new.
“It seems like there’s Good Ford and Bad Ford” – HaHa, love this! So true. With Chrysler, it was always car-by-car. I have long said that Mopars make such good cars after restoration because they have finally been put together properly.
With Fords, it’s on a model-by-model basis, all in production at the same time. E Series van – Good Ford. Aerostar & Windstar- bad Ford. Panther & Fox – Good Ford. Tempo – Bad Ford.
I once referred to it as the Ford Fake-Out, make lots of good models and then sell you (and everyone else who buys a new model) a steaming pile. But I like your description better.
I can attest to that Focus rust issue. My ’04 wagon has major rust-thru on the rockers, while my partner’s ’06 hatch has not a speck of rust there. And I’ve noticed this on other Focus models too.
I just helped my oldest daughter and her husband buy a well cared for 06 Focus ZX5. There are some spots of rust that have been poorly touched up including at the bottom of each front fender. As we no longer put salt into the sand mix during the winter most cars don’t rust so badly in Alberta. The exception seems to be Mazda Protégés or early Mazda3 models. Always around the rear wheel openings.
I have no more than spots of rust on my ’02 Tribute (and none on the rocker panels, thank goodness), but I have no idea if it counts as a Ford or a Mazda. At any rate, I do very little winter city driving and I don’t put it in a heated garage where snow could melt and then settle in the rocker panels or other areas.
My best friend’s 626 is almost completely gone in the rear, but it’s his winter beater anyway.
We had a 2001 Windstar, sorry to report nothing ever went wrong with it-we traded it in on a Taurus X. It was a Sport model, bright red with a wing on it. Some south of the 49th might have considered Windstars to be foriegn cars because they were built down the highway from me in Oakville, Ontario.
Ha, for years after Windstar production ended you could see the outline of the “Home of the Windstar” sign that had been removed. 🙂
I am surprised nobody has mentioned the Ford Windstar Rear Axle Recall program. One of the guys in my car club is a recently-retired Ford mechanic who talked about this at one of our meetings. Apparently, the rear axles corrode and, if not fixed, split in half. Ford recalled all of them and the dealers installed repair kits. My friend in the car club said he installed the kit on many Windstars. I have also seen, on the internet, mention of a buy-back program instituted by Ford Motor Company.
I think that rear axle problem was inherited to previous generation Escape, sort of. My landlord’s not so old Escape was beyond repair for that reason. And Mazda DNA of Escape could possibly have made it worse, as that is possibly what eventually came out from a moderate rust bucket producer and a severe rust bucket producer.
Almost forgot about that. This van was doomed, which explains why there’s so few left.
Up till 97 the rear axle was a different design so our subject Windstar is spared that malady.
In 98 they changed the middle section it to a larger diameter thinner wall tube, which was lighter and stiffer. Until it corroded away, then it was just lighter…
My Aunt had a Winstar. I remember the comment her sister made when she rode along on a trip to the Ford shop with that van “everything has been replaced on that van except the exhaust pipe”.
I looked in the Consumer Reports reliability table. Sure enough, in the sea of black circles, there was one red circle, meaning fewer than average problems. That one red circle was for the exhaust system.
That Winstar died in a head on collision (my Aunt was OK) She now drives a Honda Fit as she no longer needs a minivan.
A friend of mine had one of these given to him by his father in law. Went thru so much coolant he nicknamed it The Prestone van
US Ford importer Hessing sold these (and later) Windstars. Very thin on the ground. At the same time -second half of the nineties- there was this Ford Galaxy. A Ford-Volkswagen-Seat joint venture.
Of course you could also buy a Ford Transit bus (taxi van) if these weren’t big enough…
I owned a 2000 Windstar, biggest hunk of junk I ever experienced. After 100k, about the only thing that worked right were the power windows. Finally the engine seized up (a week after I had put almost $1000 into engine work) on the 4th of July at the beach. I donated it to a charity. The worst…
wrt to the earlier point about 70s build quality, here is the 1979 Mustang test. If anyone bought a car with this many problems today, they would be screaming for a lemon law buyback. In the 70s, this was normal, including the stalling and stumbling mentioned. The 302 in my 78 POS Zephyr ran the same. If they had kept the car longer, they would have noticed the clouds of carbon blowing out the back that I saw with the Zephyr and a coworker saw with his 79 Mustang.
Theres no excuse for that kind of sloppy build quality. The drivability issues were likely fueled by the smog choking. At the time, the tech was nowhere near solid enough to satisfy what the feds were mandating without seriously ruining power, efficiency or reliability. Sloppy quality control on top of that is a recipe for disaster. I had a pile of vaccum hoses an air pump, and some other wonky crap that ripped off my 81 CJ-7 with the 258. Picked up like 4 mpg, dead miss vanished and it ran like a raped ape after that.
My grandfather had a ’79 Mustang with the junky 2.3-liter OHC four – it had something like 150k miles when he inherited it from his brother-in-law, who had bought it new.
What a pile of trash. That 4-cylinder always wheezed and sputtered when it was cold, and the gas mileage was horrible – only about 18 mpg in town. My 1994 Volvo 850 would easily run rings around it in every category.
Theres no excuse for that kind of sloppy build quality.
That was what you got in the 70s. My 78 POS Zephyr had been a demonstrator, so I don’t know how many things the dealer might have corrected before I bought it. Things I noticed were something loose in the rear suspension that rattled with every bump, a driver’s door lock cylinder that was installed crooked so you couldn’t pull the key out after you unlocked the door (I had to unlock the door and open it, then relock the door to get the key out) and the bright molding on the passenger side door window sill had about 3 retaining clips missing so it was loose. The metering needle in the carb did not fit right in it’s seat, so when I parked the car, gas would drool into the manifold and flood the engine. The lighter socket was loose, so when I tried to plug in my CB, I was met with a shower of sparks and a blown fuse.
Holy crap on that review. My (new) ’80 Mustang was a huge POS; it followed a ’78 Trans Am Turbo POS; in ’81 I went Japanese and haven’t looked back.
I still haven’t seen evidence the US companies have caught up to Toyonda Inc. – my wife’s ’10 Edge has been troublesome (especially the cooling system and motor mounts); we’re making plans for a Highlander to replace.
Trans Am Turbo was 1980-1981(and 1989 anniversary) only
The Turdstar is a great example of how Ford could occasionally out-GM GM with a vehicle that was a steaming pile of poorly engineered and built poo, yet would still sell in good numbers (200k annually is nothing sneeze at). Of course, just like GM, these sorts of nefarious activities would come back to haunt Ford when people who got burned would swear off ever buying another Ford product, again.
Ironically, at about the same time as the Turdstar, there was actually a quasi-Ford product that was one of the best minivans ever built: the Ford-engined Mazda MPV minivan. Yeah, the initial few years were underpowered with the 2.5L / 4-speed auto, but once they began installing the 3.0L / 5-speed, it was the proverbial ‘just-right’, with all the latest features (dual sliding doors, roll-down rear windows, fold-flat third row seat) in a perfectly sized, powered, and well-built package. I miss the old Mazda MPV and was saddened when it was replaced by the too small (and now discontinued) Mazda5.
The Nissan-sourced Mercury Villager wasn’t bad either.
The USPS is still using a number of Windstars in Portland, OR and make up most of the Windstars I see around town. I think Ford should have put more effort into making their non-trucks/SUVs better during the 1990s.
Yes about the Postal Service Windstars. In fact, the majority of first generation Windstars I do see now and then are clearly ex-postal vehicles (I don’t think any are still in service around here). Most still have those funky tailgate-mounted mirrors.
Quest/Villagers are cockroaches of vans, all over working class towns, can’t kill them expect rust and crashes. Ford should have badged Windstars from these.
Well they should have used the drivetrains from them, the rest of the Villager/Quests were shit.
We had a second-gen Windstar as our last (meaning both “previous” and “final”) minivan. I never remember it having any big mechanical problems, but it was very noisy in the third row, both on the interstate and on gravel roads. Any of the minivans we had before that, I would’ve been too young to even know anything about them besides their model and their color.
The only thing I can remember about any first-gen Windstars I rode in as a child was that they all seemed to have a bad exhaust leak.
My neighbors down the road dabble in car flipping, but I don’t think they have it all figured out. They first found a clean 1 owner but northstar powered Seville…I told Jason if he’s smart, he’ll unload that FAST before it starts eating headgaskets. He admitted that he did some research AFTER buying the car and learned just that. For the last year, they’ve been tooling around in a late model Wind/Free star bought for the same reason. Granted, its another spotless one owner but damn! I told him to feel free to run any future prospects by me if he has doubts….
When they hit the used car market, the appearance of a Windstar on the block would cause the dealers to scatter to other auction lines. The only guys willingly buying these, even with their well-known poor reputation, were the buy-here, pay-here, low-line operators.
Were it not tough enough for low-income people to be buying another car from a dealer who structured their payments so they typically extracted well over the car’s true market value, then to be stuck with a Windstar and its multiple costly failures. The Windstar may have proved satisfactory in limited cases, but it general it was a disaster for any one who fell for owning one.
We actually have one of these where I work – a ’98. It’s from a GSA auction. It’s a cargo version, with no trim and rubber flooring in back of the front seats, vinyl seats, few options. It’s got the 3.0. It also only has about 28k on it. It’s beat to heck and has peeling paint, but it’s still kicking.
I work for a university, so it routinely gets driven by college students who have a habit of running into walls and the like.
I’ve lurked here for about a year and this is the first time I’ve seen a CC from where I live. People I know of refer to this Windstar as “the dolphin” due to the noises that come from it.
Did you say “the dolphin” ?
The coil springs on the Windstars were prone to breakage. I believe this was a problem in the locations that applied road salt on the winter.
The right front spring on our 1998 Windstar snapped as we were pulling into our driveway from an eight hour highway roadtrip, dropping the wheel well on top of the tire. I was not happy about the broken spring, but at the same time, felt fortunate the spring had not broken 10 minutes earlier when we were driving 70 miles per hour. I don’t think I could have kept the van under control with a spring failure at highway speeds.
A Ford loving friend of mine had a Windstar, I don’t remember what year it was, but it was incredibly bad. It went through SIX transmissions before they traded it in on an Explorer, which wasn’t great by any measure either. I would have walked away from Ford at that point, at least for a while, but he bought a ’93? Mustang, which had endless minor issues, along with the A/C dying every spring, as soon as it was needed. He’s got one of the first year Ecoboost F-150’s that just needed a bunch of engine work. Ford refused to pay for it, and only the dealer’s “goodwill allowance (I can’t remember the term for it) ” kept the repairs under $1000, barely. Originally, it was over $3000. And still, he’s thinking about another F150, with a V8 this time. I would be shopping Ram or GM at this point, but he’s totally Ford “Focused”. Personally, Ford products’ styling repulsed me for decades, but I don’t automatically reject them now.
Any idea on the exact nature of the F150 problems? Very curious.
I was skeptical of the whole EcoBoost concept to begin with, undersized engines relying on overworked? turbos to take up the slack.
No emissions testing in Massachusetts on 2000 & older vehicles
Owner probably wouldn’t believe people on the internet want to see his minivan
The late, great Wesley Willis loved his Windstar, even wrote a song about it.
Surprised it hasn’t been pointed out that there’s another factor to why so few Windstars survive on the road–Cash 4 Clunkers. If I’m remembering correctly, the Windstar was in the top 10 most commonly traded in vehicles, maybe in the top 5. That program did the job for a great many of them that hadn’t already succumbed to gasket or transmission failure.
It’s kind of amusing to realize how similar the nose styling on these vans was to a Contour, also. They even had the mid-cycle refresh that sharpened up the jellybean look with some straight lines and gave the headlights a slight scowl.
I was driving a company owned Windstar, to Green Bay WI just pulled of the freeway, on to a frontage road and I heard Wham,! Come to find out the drivers side strut decided to take out the steer tire. I was lucky I wasn’t going to fast. I found out that they had a nasty habit of breaking front springs that puncture the steers. It was spose to be recalled with “updated struts” that had a shield on so when you’re spring broke it wouldn’t puncture the tires. I refused to drive that thing again…
I had a 95 Windstar from 2003 to 2008 when the transmission started to fail I sold it and bought a Pontiac Montana, I was a lot happier with the Pontiac and drove it for ten years.
“I like that Windstar keeps my family safe !” chirped the soccer mom in a TV ad—as if the car were a government agency or a concept of philosophy, rather than a consumer product . . .?
The Windstar had significantly higher crash ratings than the other minivans when it was released and Ford advertised that heavily. We very nearly bought one in 98 for that reason, but ultimately the second door on the Chrysler (Plymouth actually) became the deciding factor.
Our 1998 Windstar did not have many mechanical issues. It was driven often on 1000 mile round trips. It actually was a decent vehicle until corrosion accelerated by road salt overtook it.